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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.v.-— : Copyright Xo.__ 

Shelf.JAS.G^- 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LITTLE WANDERERS 



BY 



MARGARET WARNER MORLEY 

AUTHOR OF 

'FLOWERS AND THEIR FRIENDS," "A FEW FAMILIAR FLOWERS,' 

"BEE PEOPLE," ETC. 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

©be &tljenaettm press 

1899 



Office of tfcQ 
Register of Copyright* 



47654 



Copyright, 1899, by 
MARGARET WARNER MORLEY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



SECOND COPY, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Why Plants Travel 1 

Those that Fly with Plumes or Down ..... 4 

Dandelions .......... 4 

Thistles .......... 15 

Milkweeds 20 

Lettuce .......... 25 

Clematis .......... 27 

Asters and Golden-Rod ........ 29 

The Willow 31 

Cattails 37 

Geraniums . . . . . . . . . .39 

Cotton .......... 41 

Other Fly-Aways ........ 45 

Seeds that Fly with Wings ....... 47 

Maples ........... 47 

Elms 52 

Ash Trees .......... 54 

Pines 56 

Seeds that Fly without Wings or Plumes ..... 59 

Other Seeds that are Moved by the Wind . . . . 61 

tumbleweeds ......... 63 

iii 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Wanderers that Cling 65 

Burdocks .......... 65 

cockleburs and sand spurs ...... 68 

Tick Trefoil ......... 70 

Stick-Tights 73 

Agrimony and Other Weeds 76 

Flax 78 

Mistletoe ......... 80 

Other Plants with Sticky Seeds or Seed Pods . . 82 

Wanderers that Float ........ 84 

Seeds that Animals Like to Eat ....... 87 

The Hickory 87 

Walnuts and Butternuts ....... 90 

The Chestnut ......... 92 

Other Edible Seeds ........ 94 

Berries .......... 96 

Cherries .......... 98 

Apples . . . 100 

Seeds that are Shot away ........ 102 

Oxalis 102 

Witch-Hazel 104 

Touch-Me-Not 106 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



o^o 



WHY PLANTS TRAVEL. 



Plants are great travelers; they often wander far 
and wide. Sometimes they even cross the ocean and 
take up their abode in a new land. 

The oxeye daisy, our common meadow buttercup, 
and the little Canada thistle, now so abundant every- 
where, are not native Americans, but came here from 
Europe. 

Very likely they sailed in the ships with the early 

^ settlers and took possession of the New World with 
a them. They are so much at home now 



always 
did not, 



%l 



Kjd, that most people think they 




2 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

and when the Pilgrim Fathers looked over their new 
home the fields were not white with daisies nor yellow 
with buttercups. 

No doubt the Pilgrim Fathers were glad of this, for 
daisies and buttercups often cover the fields and spoil 
the hay, and while " daisies in the meadow " seem very 
lovely to the city people who go to the country for the 
summer, daisies in the hay are another matter, and the 
farmers do not think them lovely at all. 

It is not the grown-up plants that travel, as a rule, 
though some of them do. For you must know the 
plant world is a topsy-turvy kind of place where the 
parents stand still at home and the children wander 
about. 

Of course the children are the seeds, and they are 
free, but when they once settle down and begin to 
grow their wandering days are over. 

Plants with roots are great home-bodies; nothing 
short of actual violence can make them move from the 
spot they have chosen. Frequently it happens that 
they die if moved. 

Not so with the seeds, however. 

They wander about, and their parents often take 
great pains to send them out into the world. 

For the children of the plants are very apt to die if 
they remain at home too long. They need to find a 
place in which to settle down and grow, and it is often 



WHY PLANTS TRAVEL. . 3 

better for them to do this at a distance from their 
parents. 

Plants eat what is in the soil, and each kind of plant 
needs some particular earth food. When plants of one 
kind are crowded too closely in a place the earth is 
often impoverished, and the plant might die out if it 
were not able to find a fresh growing place. Then, 
again, if the seeds always fell close to the parent plant, 
the earth would soon become too crowded to support 
more than a very few new plants. 

So for these and other reasons it is best for the seeds 
to go while they are able and find a place for themselves. 

Nearly all seeds are provided with some way of mov- 
ing about, and while some of them go very short dis- 
tances others go very long ones. 

They travel for their profit, and why may we not say 
for their pleasure ? For if a plant is able to feel and 
enjoy at all, — and I for one believe it is, — then the 
dandelion seeds must feel very joyous sailing before the 
wind in the early summer, and later the thistle-down 
and the milkweed seeds, scudding before the breeze. 



Sfe_ 




f* 



Some happy wanderers 



THOSE THAT FLY WITH PLUMES OR DOWN. 



DANDELIONS. 

Everybody is well acquainted with the dandelion, 
but not ^k everybody knows that it was brought 

to this ^ J country from Europe. It is not proba- 
ble that ' \ a dandelion seed could come on the 

so- 
wings of /^ the wind three thousand miles across 

nor is it probable that people would 
purpose. 

\&—% dandelion seeds were acciden- 
in with the grass and clover seeds 
brought from their homes in the 



the ocean, 
bring it on 

Very likely 
tally mixed 
the . settlers 
Old World. 

Before the 
did not see 
nor did he 
that grows 
grows in 

The 



New 



coming of the white man the Indian 
the roadsides yellow with dandelions, 
see dandelions at all, excepting a kind 
sparingly way up north and another that 
the Rocky Mountains. 
s j» European dandelions liked the 
World and when they had the 
chance spread very fast, so that 
now they are every- 
where — at least in 
the East. 

4 



;. >.-■ 




DANDELIONS, 5 

The reason they were able to spread so is that the 
dandelion seeds were able to fly. 

If they had not flown away but had dropped down 
close to the parent plant and grown there, they would 
not have been allowed to spread much ; for people do 
not like dandelions in their fields and lawns, and try 
hard to root them out. 

This would be easy if the dandelions kept together 
in patches. But they seem to say " catch me if you 
can " as they fly on the wings of the wind, dropping 
down here, there, and everywhere, striking root and 
merrily growing. 

The parent dandelion takes very good care of its 
seed children, and plans for their future success by 




LITTLE WANDERERS. 



giving each one a little plume by which it can be 
blown about by the wind. 

Everybody knows the pretty, fluffy, white-headed 
dandelions that come after the yellow flowers. 

Children often blow on them " to see what time it 
is." If all the seeds fly away but one, they say it is 
one o'clock ; if two remain, they say it is two o'clock, 
and so on. 

They also blow on them to see if " mother 
wants me," as every child knows. 

Each little silky part that flies away is a 
seed case and its plume. 

If you look carefully at the part of the 

dandelion that flies about, you will see the 

little brown seed case at one end, shaped 

something like a tiny cucumber, and with 

little teeth near its top. 

Out of its top grows a silky white stalk, and at the 

end of this is a tuft of soft little hairs by means of 

which the seed case can float in the air. 

Each dandelion seed case contains one little seed, but 
the case fits the seed so closely that most people speak 
of the whole thing — seed case and seed together — as 
the seed. The proper name for such a seed case and 
its seed is akene. # Not all akenes have plumes. 

The top of the dandelion stem is a flat cushion, and 
the little akenes, when the seeds are ripe, stand on it, 

* a-ken' 




Seed case and 
plume mag- 
nified. 



DAXDELIONS. 




The flat cushion with a few 
seeds attached. 



pointing out in different directions so there may be room 

for every one with its spread-out 

plume. 

The plumes do not open out 
until the seed is ready to be 
blown away, and the akenes do 
not stand pointing out in all di- 
rections until the time to fly has 
come. Before that they are all 
packed closely together. 

Because the little akene 
is so light and feathery the breeze bears it 
along, sometimes for quite a distance, but at 
last it drops down to the earth or else is 
blown among the grasses or weeds or stones 
and lodges there, and when the right time 
comes the seed that is in the little brown seed 
case sprouts. 

Sometimes the air seems to be full of 
dandelion akenes floating about. 
Although the dandelion is so bright and @ 
pretty, people do not like it in their lawns. 

Excepting when in bloom or when it is 
"white-headed," it is not as pretty as .grass. An elosel 
It does not make a beautiful velvety carpet packed 
to the earth, but its leaves look ragged and 
uneven and spoil the appearance of the lawn. 




im 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



It is from its leaves that the dandelion gets its name, 
for " dandelion " means " tooth of a lion " ; and if you 
look at a well-grown dandelion leaf you will understand 
why it came to have such a fierce name. 




A well-grown dandelion leaf. 

Dandelions are very fond of growing in lawns. 
They like to be taken care of, and they seem to like 
to have their heads cut off. 

Anyway the lawn mower does not trouble them in 
the least. 

Their leaves grow close to the ground, in the shape 
of a rosette, and when the lawn mower passes over, 
only the large outer leaves are harmed ; the young ones 
towards the center of the rosette remain unhurt and 
have more light and air and space to grow in; so our 
dandelion flourishes in spite of its pruning. 

When a dandelion once gets its roots started it does 
not make so very much difference if it has its flowers 
cut off, for it does not die when winter comes. Only 
its leaves die. Its root continues alive in the earth, 
and in the spring wakes up and puts out new leaves. 




DANDELIONS. 9 

So cutting off the flowers does not destroy the dande- 
lion, it merely prevents seeds from forming, and more 
dandelions from starting. 

Dandelion roots kill the 
grass by pushing it aside and 
taking the earth-food for them- 
selves. 

So if dandelions get started 
in a lawn they will soon kill 
out the grass, and then there will be a dandelion 
lawn instead of a grass lawn ! 

A dandelion lawn is very beautiful for a little while 
in the early summer. Sometimes it looks like a carpet 
of gold, the yellow flowers are so thick and fine. But 
when they are done blossoming the lawn is a sorry 
looking sight. 

Dandelions do not trouble the hay fields, for where 
the grass is allowed to grow tall it soon smothers 
them. 

Boys are often hired to dig dandelion roots out of 
lawns, and near large cities poor women may often be 
seen digging them out for the sake of the young leaves 
which, when they first come up in the spring, make 
very good " greens." These people sell them or eat 
them instead of spinach. Tender young dandelion 
leaves are very good indeed, and some people like 
them better than spinach. 



10 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 




1. A cluster of 

flowers. 

2. One flower 
(magnified). 



Dandelion plants have a wise way of protecting their 
seed children until the time for flight. 

The flower buds come out of the center of the leaf 
rosette, close to the ground. They have very short 
g^^ steins and seem to sit right on the 
rosette. 

There are a great many flowers in one 
dandelion head. Each little yellow part 
of the dandelion flower head is a separate 
blossom, and each separate blossom has 
one seed case with a seed inside growing 
to the bottom of it. 
1 All of these blossoms are shut up at 
first in a case of green, leaf-like parts, 
and form the bud. 

As the bud grows older its stem lengthens a little, 
as you can see in the picture on page 9 — unless it 
is on a lawn. Then it does not lengthen ; it seems to 
know the lawn mower 
will come along and take 
off its head if it grows 
taller, so it stays close to 
the ground. After a while 
the green bud opens, the many little yellow flowers 
push their way out, and the dandelion is in bloom. 

Towards night the dandelion shuts up again ; the 
tiny yellow flowers press close together, and the outer 




The bud. 



DANDELIONS. 



11 



covering of green bracts, as they are called, closes up, 
too, and shuts them in all snug and safe. 

& When the dandelion has once closed 

V «^ it does not open again. But its 
% stem, which was very short, begins to 
lengthen. 

It is a hollow stem, as you know, 
and has a bitter, milky juice. 

Longer and longer grows the stem 
with the closed-up flower cluster at its 
top. But this wise stem does not 
stand up. Oh, no, indeed ! it lies 
down or leans over, concealed by the 





grass and weeds, unless it grows on a lawn. Then the 
wise stem does not lengthen much ; it is afraid of that 
lawn mower. 

If the dandelion is growing among tall grass, the 



12 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



stem will grow very long indeed ; if among short grass 
it will not grow so long. 

By this time you can guess why. 
When the seeds are ripe and the silky plumes all 
nicely formed that stem stands up! 

It stands straight up 
and looks over the tops 
of the grasses. Then the 
green bracts on the out- 
side turn back, and the 
silky tufts spread out and 
pull themselves free from 
the remains of the tiny 
flowers which have with- 
ered and are no longer 
yellow. They do not fall 
off when the flower first 
closes, but make a little 
cap to protect the growing akenes, and when these get 
ready to open out the cap is pushed off by them. 

The hollow stem stands up, and its lovely silky head 
of plumed akenes shines in the sunlight. 

There is nothing much prettier in the plant world than 

this head of fairy dandelion akenes all ready to fly away. 

They stand and shine until a breeze comes along 

that is strong enough to dislodge them, then all in a 

moment they are off sailing through the air. 




Opening out and push- 
ing off the cap. 



. DANDELIONS. 13 

The parent plant is not sorry to have them go, for 
this is what it has worked so hard to accomplish ; and 
as they float away, if it thinks at all, it no doubt 
hopes that each little shining wanderer will alight at 
last in a beautiful home of its own with plenty of space 
and sunlight and food for its growth. 

If there is not breeze enough to carry away the 
dandelion akenes, when night approaches or a storm 
gathers the careful parent plant does not allow these 
silky treasures to become soaked and spoiled by 
moisture. 

Each little plume shuts up again ! The silky tufts 
no longer spread out, and the green bracts, too, turn up 
and cover them safely as before. They go to sleep, 
hoping, no doubt, for better luck next day. 

There is no better fun than to watch the dandelions 
do these things. 

When children blow the heads of dandelions away, 
that is just what the dandelions want, for it sets all 
the akenes flying about in the air above the earth. 

The main thing for a dandelion seed is to get started. 
If it can get up in the air free from the weeds and 
grasses, it will be sure to take quite a journey and will 
doubtless settle in a new home. 

The bitter milky juice of the dandelion very likely 
protects it from being eaten by various plant-eating 
creatures. 



14 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



This juice is familiar to country children who pick 
the long stems of the dandelions, split them, and 
" curl " the parts in their mouths. 

These pretty stems make very long and fine curls, as 
every little country girl knows. 




THISTLES. 



Nobody can help liking thistles — that 
is, to look at. We do not care to handle 
them, nor do they care to have us, which 
perhaps is why they are covered all over 
with such sharp prickles. 

The prickles are an intimation to 
us to let them alone. 

They do not want to be handled, 
and they do not want to be eaten. 
When a plant arms itself 
with thorns or prickles, 
that is its way of saying 
" hands off." Few crea- 
tures besides 
donkeys 
thistles. 

It is said 
that don- 
keys are 
fond of 
them, and 
some horses 
will nibble 




eat 



16 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



at them, but on the whole the thistles are let alone, 
excepting by the farmer, who digs them up. 

Thistles are much more troublesome than dandelions, 
for they get into the hay and grain, and if let alone 

some kinds will kill 
out all other plants 
and occupy the land 
themselves. 

There are many 
kinds of thistles. 
Our large native ones 
that bear beautiful 
showy purple, or 
pink, or white heads 
are not, as a rule, 
very troublesome to 
the farmer. 

The little Canada 
thistle is the pest he 
dreads. That, like 
the dandelion, came 
from Europe. No doubt its seeds were first brought 
over — a very few of them — with other seeds from 
the Old World. But all the little emigrant asked was 
to get started. 

Once across the sea, it was able to conquer the plants 
of America and get a place for itself, for its seeds fly, 




THISTLES. 17 

like those of the dandelion, and in very much the 
same way. 

The Canada thistle spreads by running roots that 
live through the winter, as well as by seeds, so no 
wonder it quickly found its way far and wide. 

It is for this reason sometimes called the creeping 
thistle, and because it is so troublesome it is also 
named the Cursed thistle. 

There is a thistle in Europe which bears a light yel- 
low flower head and is called the Blessed thistle or the 
Holy thistle. It has its name because people used to 
believe it had power to counteract poison. This thistle 
has been brought over from Europe, and is sometimes 
to be found in the southern part of the United States, 
where it has run wild. 

Thistle heads are often very large and handsome. 
Like the dandelion flower clusters, they are made up of 
a large number of small blossoms. 

Bees and blossoms are very fond of thistle honey, 
and they can almost always be found on the blossoms, 
sucking out the drop of honey which is to be found in 
each little flower of the cluster. 

At the bottom of each little flower, as in the dande- 
lion, is an akene. An akene, we remember, is a tight- 
fitting seed case containing one seed. The thistle akene 
also has a plume to fly with. 

The thistle plume has no stalk, but grows right from 



18 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 




the top of the akene. The plumed akenes are packed 

tightly away be- 
neath the scaly 
bracts that sur- 
round them. 

These bracts in 
the thistle are 
generally covered 
with sharp 
prickles. So, al- 
though one likes to look at a thistle and inhale its 
fragrance, it is not a pleasant flower to handle. 

When the thistle seeds are 
ripe, the prickly covering loos- 
ens, and the akenes come troop- 
ing out in a soft, fluffy mass. 
Away they fly, one by one, as 
the breeze dislodges them and 
carries them off. They are 
much more showy than the dan- 
delion akenes, for the plumes 
are much larger. 

Away they go, this way and 
that, and after a while the 
wind blows them against a 
tree branch, or a fence rail, or 
a stone. Then the akene thus stopped drops off from 




THISTLES. 



19 



the plume to the ground. The akene, in this case, is 
done sailing about. It has come to rest and very 
likely will lie until the next spring before it sprouts. 

The plume is not harmed at all when the akene 
lets go, but at the next gust of wind flies on, lighter 
than ever. 

One often sees these seedless plumes sailing about in 
the summer and fall. 

People sometimes gather the heads of large thistles 
before the seeds are ripe, pull out the pink part of the 
flowers, carefully pull off the prickly bracts, and hang 
the rest up to dry. The akenes do not then fall off, 
but the plumy part fluffs out and makes a pretty pom- 
pon with which the children's hats can be trimmed. 




© 



MILKWEEDS. 



Most of us like milkweeds. They are not so trouble- 
some as £^C? the dandelions and thistles. They 
generally J | grow in waste places, along stone 
i walls, or outside fences, where they 
do no harm to the crops 
but make the roadsides 
charming. Most kinds of 
milkweeds have a milky 
juice, as their name tells. 
It is thicker and stickier 
than the dandelion juice, 
and is very disagreeable 
if one gets it on his 
fingers. 

This, no doubt, is why 
the plant makes it that 
way. It does not wish 
us to get its juice on our 
fingers ; it wishes us to let 
it alone. It also wishes 
animals to let it alone and 
not eat it ; and most ani- 




mals are not fond of it. 
certain caterpillars. 



This is not true, however, of 



20 



MILKWEEDS. 



21 



Towards fall you will generally see the milkweed 
leaves covered with bright yellow and black caterpillars 
that certainly are lovely whether you think, so or not. 

If you take the largest of these caterpillars and put 
them in a box of earth with plenty of fresh milkweed 
leaves to eat as long as they 
want to eat (which will not be 
long), you will see what happens. 

Something happens, and you 
will do well to find out about it. 

Milkweeds have pretty, fra- 
grant flowers that grow together, 
many in a bunch, but not close 
together into a solid head, like 
the little dandelion flowers. Each 
milkweed flower has its own 
little stem. 

Not all of the flowers in a 
bunch of milkweed go to seed. 
Generally only one or two from 
each bunch do. The rest are 
crowded out and wither and fall off, for the milkweed 
flower develops a very large seed pod that holds a 
great many seeds, and there is not room on the stem 
for many of these big pods. 

The flowers of our common milkweed are pink- 
purple in color, and the pods are fuzzy and irregular 




22 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 




on the outside, and are shaped as you see in the 
picture. 

Inside they are lovely. The pod itself is as smooth 
and shiny as satin, and there is a bridge running length- 
wise; to this grow the seeds — a great 
many in each pod. Each seed has a 
plume and looks very much like the 
thistle akene with its plume. But 
these seeds have no seed case, except- 
ing the large pod in which they all lie 
together. They grow inside this case, 
which opens to let them escape. The 
milkweed seed looks so much like the 
thistle akene that you would have to 
examine it very carefully to discover the difference. 

The milkweed seeds are brown and round and flat, 
and each has a silky plume, with no stalk to the 
plume. The seeds lie packed closely together in the 
pod with their plumes unopened, but when they are 
ripe the pod splits open down one side and the plumes 
fluff out. 

Then you will see a pretty sight. From the gap in the 
pod the pretty, silky seeds come spilling out. Their 
plumes touch each other and hold the seeds together in 
a soft feathery mass until along comes the breeze. 
Then one after another the pretty seeds float away 
and the empty pods are left behind. 



MILKWEEDS. 



23 



Sometimes children catch bees in empty milkweed 
pods. The bees make a great buzzing in the pod, and it 
is not fair to keep them long, for it interferes with their 
honey-gathering or pollen-collecting. If there is any- 
thing a bee hates, it is to waste time, with so many 
hungry mouths at home waiting to be fed. 

Like the thistles, w^hen the milkweed seeds become 
quite dry they often drop away from their plumes, par- 




ticularly if they strike against something when sailing 
about. 

There are a number of species of "milkweeds. One 
common species has bright, orange flowers, and is called 
butterfly weed. Its flowers look a little like bright 
butterflies, and the butterflies are fond of its honey. 

There is a lovely milkweed in Florida that has large 
pea-green leaves with broad pink veins running all 
through them. 



24 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



Some species of milkweeds have long, slender, smooth 
pods, and very likely yon have noticed them along the 
roadside. 





LETTUCE. 



Those who have seen lettuce 

only on the table, or growing in 

the early spring garden or in the 

green-house, will feel like laughing 

V at the idea of lettuces flying ! 

Yet they do fly. At least their 
seeds do. 

Sometimes lettuces look like rosettes 
I jik growing out of the ground, and some- 
times they look like little cab- 
bages. But that is only the 
leaves. 

If lettuces are let alone and 
not picked, in time they will 
a go to seed"; a stalk will grow 
up from the middle, with small 
leaves on it and a great many 
little flower heads that look 
somewhat like tiny dandelions. 
These flower heads are made 
like those of the dandelion or 
thistle. 

The lettuce has no prickles, 

25 



Garden lettuce gone to seed. 



26 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



but its juice is milky and bitter, and gets more bitter 
as the plant grows older. The lettuce flowers have 
akenes like the dandelion, and each akene has a plume 
like that of the dandelion. 

Away fly the pretty plumed akenes, 
and lettuce is thus sown by the way- 
.side. But one seldom sees garden let- 
tuce growing, except in gardens ; for 
it is so tender the strong, rough weeds 
choke and kill it. 

There is a wild lettuce, however, 
that has a large number of flower 
heads, and of course a great many 
pretty, silky, tufted akenes. These let- 
tuces sometimes shine as if they had 
been snowed upon when their silky, 
white plumed akenes first open out. 
I advise you to see if you can find 
some of them next summer. The best place to look 
is alongside fences and hedges and in the corners of 
pastures. 

There is a lettuce so troublesome to the farmer that 
large sums of money have been appropriated to exter- 
minate it. It is called the Prickly Lettuce, because its 
leaves and stalks are prickly. It came to this country 
from Europe. It is quite as destructive to the farmer's 
crops as is the Canada thistle. 




Wild lettuce. 




Of course the clematis akenes fly. 
Nothing so fluffy as they, in the seed world, could 
do otherwise. 

The wild clematis that grows over the bushes in some 
swamps is a beautiful vine with glossy leaves and clus- 
ters of pretty white flowers. After the snowy flowers 
have gone it is still beautiful, for then each little akene 
waves a long, shining, curly plume. The whole vine is 
covered with these shining, twining plumes. 

But a day comes when they no longer shine. Each 
curling plume looks like a mass of down, for its parts 
have separated and stand out, and we now see that it 
is shaped like a feather, a downy fluffy feather. The 
whole vine is a soft fluffy mass. 

This does not last long, for the akenes leave the parent 
vine and are borne aloft on their airy plumes by the 
wind that scatters them far and wide. 

Some fall upon the right kind of soil, where they are 

27 



28 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



covered by the leaves of autumn, and lie safely until 
spring comes. Then they wake up and grow each into 
a beautiful clematis vine with shin- 
ing leaves. 

There is a beautiful clematis with 
large blue -purple flowers that grows 
in the mountains of Virginia 
and in some other places. 




Clematis gone to seed. 



ASTERS AND GOLDEN-ROD. 



Asters and golden-rod blossom in the fall. Then the 
country roads are lovely to walk over, and the fields 
are as bright as can be with blue 
or purple or white asters and yellow 
golden-rod. 

Some kinds of golden-rod and 
asters blossom in the summer, but 
most of them wait until late in the 
season. They are almost the last 
flowers to come and almost the last 
to go. 

When their bright flowers fade 
they are still pretty. Each '" flower" 
of the asters is like the dandelion, 
a cluster of very small flowers, and 
the golden-rod flower head is made 
up of very many tiny flowers. 

Each little flower has its own 
akene and plume quite like the 
dandelion, but a great deal smaller, and in time the 
clusters that were flowers become clusters of soft 
downy plumes. 

This state does not last long, for the akenes are blown 

29 




Asters. 



30 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



away by the wind and sown far and near over field and 
roadside. 

If you brush against the downy aster and golden-rod 
heads when the seeds are ripe, the akenes will cling to 
your clothes like cobwebs and you will carry them 
about with you until finally they fall off. 

Perhaps that is one way by which the golden-rod and 
aster seeds travel about ; they cling to animals that pass 
and so are carried far away. But they do not cling as 
well as some other seeds we are soon to know about. 



*%b:i^b 




Golden-rod. 



THE WILLOW. 




The willow that children know and love the best is 
the pussy willow. It grows in damp or swampy places 
and before the leaves come out 
in the spring the "pussies" are 
seen on the branches. They 
are little, soft, silvery pussies, 
and it is not everybody who 
knows what they really are. 

Each "pussy" or catkin, as 
we must call it, is a group of small 
flowers, or rather flower-buds, for after 
the flowers are fully out the pussies 
lose their soft, silky appearance and 
no longer deserve to be called pussies. 
The older catkins are covered with sta- 
mens full of yellow pollen or 
else with seed pods. For wil- 
lows bear two kinds of flowers, 
the stamen-bearing, or stam- 
inate flowers, and the seed- staminate cat- 
bearing, or pistillate flowers. kin fully out ' 
The staminate flowers grow on one willow tree, and 
the pistillate ones on another. 

31 





32 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

The pollen in the staminate flowers is very abundant 
and is carried by the wind or by insects to the pistillate 
flowers. If you shake a twig of ripe 
staminate catkins, your hands and 
clothes will be covered with pollen 




Pistillate dust. 

catkin. 



Bees are fond of willow pollen and 
eagerly gather it in the early spring. The willow 
catkin has a tiny drop of nectar at the base of each 
little flower, and bees and flies are fond of this and 
visit the willows to get it. Of course, as the insects 
fly from one catkin to another, they carry pollen from 
one to another. 

After a time the staminate flowers wither and fall, 
but the pistillate ones are followed by seed pods, and 
the stem that bears them lengthens to make room for the 
growing pods, and at last when the seeds are ripe the 
pods split open and out come the tiniest of little seeds, 
each with a tiny plume of down, and away they fly. 

There are a great many species of willow, and not all 
of them are as pretty as the pussy willow. One reason 
why the pussy willow is so pretty is that the catkins 
appear before the leaves. In some willows the catkins 
come with the leaves, and in some they come after the 
leaves are fully grown. Many willows have bright red 
or yellow or green stems that give color to the land- 
scape even in midwinter. 




THE WILLOW. . 33 

In all willows the pistillate catkins bear pods that 
open and let out fluffy seeds. 

The cottonwood trees are relatives of the willows. 
Their seeds are so very downy that 
when they are ripe the ground be- 
neath the trees will often be white, 
as though a light snow had fallen. 

It is because the seeds are so 
abundantly supplied with soft cot- 
tony plumes that the tree is called 
cotton-wood. Ripe willow catkin - 

Poplars are also closely related to the willows and, 
like them, have fluffy seeds. 

In the early summer, if you look in the right place, 
you will see plenty of them. 

Willow and poplar twigs are very strong and limber, 
and some kinds are used to make baskets and chairs 
and cradles and a great many other useful things. 
The slender young twigs are woven together and make 
very strong and durable articles. 

Since only the long twigs can be used, people get 
them in large quantities by cutting off the heads of the 
trees, when long sprouts shoot up all around the ends 
of the cut limbs. Cutting off the tops of the trees in 
this way is called pollarding, and a pollarded willow or 
poplar is rather a funny sight, particularly after it has 
had its head cut off a number of times. 



34 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



Willow branches about as large around as one's fin- 
ger make very good whistles in the spring of the year. 
The sap flowing under the bark loosens it, so that by 




Pollarded willows. 



pounding the twig the bark can be slipped off unbroken, 
the wood beneath cut as desired, and the bark slipped 

on again. 

The dotted lines show how 



7 ^x^ rz 



u 



the wood should be cut away under the bark. 

Willow twigs also make, very good switches, and 
long, ah, very long ago, when children used to be 
naughty, willow switches were in great demand. 

In these later days children are never naughty I 
suppose — or is it only that switching has gone out of 
fashion ? 

These switches did not come from weeping willows, 



THE WILLOW. 



35 



though that certainly would have been a very appro- 
priate name for them. 

Weeping willows are large and beautiful trees that 
came from the eastern part of Asia. The twigs are 
very long and slender and hang down like a veil all 
about the tree. 

Weeping willows are favorites in parks and pleasure 
grounds, and it used to be the fashion to plant them in 
cemeteries, at the heads of gravestones. 




Everybody who has tried to preserve bird skins, or 
the skins of small animals, doubtless knows what sali- 
cylic acid is, but not everybody knows that this is 
obtained from the bark of willows and poplars. Some 
species of willow contain a great deal of the substance 
from which salicylic acid is made. 

Salicylic acid prevents animal tissue from decaying, 



36 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



and it is also used as a medicine. It is not poisonous, 
but is rather unpleasant to handle, as it is apt to make 
one sneeze. 

The bark of willows is also used in Europe for tan- 
ning, instead of oak or hemlock bark, which is com- 
monly used in this country. 

" Tan bark" is bark that has been ground up and 
had the "tannin/' or substance that hardens leather, 
extracted from it. The tan bark is then put on roads 
or walks, or sometimes on city streets, to deaden the 
noise. It is often used in the country for 
banking up houses in the winter. 

Willows grow quickly, and some of 
those that like wet places are often 
planted on sandy shores of lakes or 
streams, or on banks, that their roots may 
bind the sand or loose earth together and 
so keep the shore from shifting. 

Very often a willow twig A 
can be made to grow by 
merely sticking the cut end 
in damp earth, and many 
a large willow has thus 
planted as a twig by the hand 
of a little child. 




CATTAILS. 




Cattails in bloom. 



Cattail seeds fly, 
too ! It is surprising 
to know that cattails 
blossom. But they do. 

In the early spring, 
cattails look green in- 
stead of brown, and 
the thickened green 
part near the top is 
made of very, very 
small flowers packed 
tightly together. 

The brown velvety ' 
part of the cattail 
succeeds the green 
flowers, and is but a 
collection of tiny seed 
pods that fluff out 
with tiny plumes in 
the autumn. 

There are two kinds 
of flowers in cattails, as there are in 
willows, only in the cattails the two 




38 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



1 5 



kinds are on the same plant. If you look at a cattail 
in its green stage, you will easily find the staminate 
flowers growing at the very top of the stalk, — at 
A in the picture. Out of these staminate flowers 
you can shake clouds of yellow pollen. Below the 
staminate flowers at B are the pistillate flowers, 
very small and packed very closely together. 
Each one has a seed pod at its base, and each 
seed pod when ripe has a tiny plume. 

Of course the seed pods fly away on the wings 
of the wind. Being so small and light, they are 
sometimes carried a long distance. 

A good many, no doubt, are so unfortunate as to fall 

on dry ground, and that 
is the end of them. 

But others fall in 
swamps and ditches, 
where they grow vigor- 
ously and often fill up 
the swamp or the ditch 
so that it becomes a bed 
of cattails. 

The downy cattail seeds 
are gathered in some 
places and made into 
mattresses for people to 

Cattails with ripe seeds. Sleep OU. 




GERANIUMS. 




The bright flowers raised in 
hothouses or in windows, and 
that we call geraniums, do not /J%A 
often bear seed in the house. 

In that part of the world 
where they grow wild, and out 
of doors in the summer time, 
they do. And their seeds are 
very curious indeed ; for they 
can not only fly about but can 
bury themselves in the ground. 

The geranium flower bears five 
curious seed pods that grow close 

together around a 

common center. 

Each seed pod has 

one seed, and when 

the seed is ripe the 

pod splits away from 

the center-piece. 
The pod runs up to a 
point, as you can see in the picture. 

There is a long feather-like plume packed in the long 

39 




40 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 





stem-like part of the pod, and this comes out when the 
pod splits away. Then the whole thing is 
floated off by the wind. This curi- 
ous plume curls up like a corkscrew 
when dry, and so pushes the seed 
down into the grass or the earth 
where it has fallen. When the plume is 
made damp by rain or dew it straightens out. 

At the bottom of ^^^^^ the seed case are a 
few hairs or bristles ^^ that point backward 

and hold the seed so that it cannot be pulled out of 
the ground when the plume curls and straightens, but 
must always be pushed farther in. 

It is a good plan for every one who has not seen the 
geranium seed case try to plant itself, to gather some 
ripe seeds and lay them on the earth in a flower pot. 
Let them get dry, then moisten them, then let them 
become dry again, and so on, until one has seen just how 
they work. 




COTTON. 



"Down South" are a great many cotton fields. 
Cotton was brought to the United States from China 
and other far-away places. It did not find its way here 
accidentally with other 
seeds, like the dandelions 
and Canada thistles, but 
was brought on purpose 
and carefully cultivated. 

A cotton field in early 
summer is rather a pretty 
sight. It is covered with 
light green little plants 
in straight rows • they 
have pretty leaves and 
yellowish flowers that 
soon turn red. These 
flowers are about the size 
of a morning-glory. 

In the fall a cotton field is much more interesting. 
Then the cotton plants are three or four feet high and 
have branched out into quite large bushes. The leaves 
have withered, but the bushes are covered with cotton 
bolls, or pods, out of which are bursting quantities of 

41 




Ripe cotton bolls. 




42 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

snowy white cotton. The field looks as if a skyful of 
soft little snowballs had fallen upon it. 

The cotton flowers are succeeded by pods, or bolls as 

they are called, and these contain black seeds about the 

size of a white bean. Each seed when 

ripe wears a coat of long, 

soft, white cotton fibers, 

and when the bolls J\ 

split open to let out & . 

An unopened boii. the seeds, out gush s 

(i nat. size.) streams of snowy cotton. 

A cotton field is most picturesque A boll just opened 

during the picking season, when the ( * nat - size) 

negroes, the women with bright kerchiefs over their 

heads, go into the fields, pick the cotton, and carry it 

— , away in large baskets. 

r^- >\ Each cotton seed is covered 

k w@tv-- with cotton fiber that clings very 

"y, close and has to be removed by 

^machinery. The machine that 

/M l ^\^J^^ does this is called a cotton gin, 

^^^//(^[^^^7 xT and is a very interesting and 





wonderful m achine . 
°^-4 N A Cotton seeds are cleaned more 

a seed and its coat of cotton, than once ; the first time the 

(Nat. size.) 

long fibers are pulled off, and this 
is the best of the cotton. Then the seeds are cleaned 



COTTON. 43 

again of less valuable, because shorter, fibers, and finally 
of the short fuzzy coat that clings to them after the 
second cleaning. The result of the last cleaning is a 
very inferior cotton, used only for a few kinds of cheap 
cloth. 

Not all cotton has white fiber. The Nankin cotton, 
which is grown near the mouth of the Mississippi River 
in this country, is naturally of a light tan color. 

Cotton is one of the most useful plants in the world, 
and a great deal of attention is given to raising and 
manufacturing it. 

The cotton has to go through a good many processes 
before it is finally ready to be spun into thread and 
then woven into cloth. 

Some very useful cotton is not spun into thread, but 
comes to us in clean, soft rolls, which we call cotton 
batting. This is useful for many household purposes, 
and when very thoroughly cleaned is used by doctors 
in dressing wounds. 

A large part of our clothing is made from the cotton 
that grows on the seeds of the cotton plant. The plant 
did not make the cotton for us, but probably to enable 
its seeds to be carried away by the wind and firmly 
fastened to the ground, when they lodged there. For 
a cotton seed clings very tightly to the earth, particu- 
larly after it has been wet. 

Cotton seeds are very useful aside from the cotton 



44 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



they are clothed with. They contain a good deal of oil 
and are ground in mills, that the oil may be pressed 
out. This oil is put to a number of uses, and when 
purified is even used instead of olive oil as food. The 
meal that is left after the oil has been pressed out 
makes a valuable fertilizer, and is also used as food for 
cattle. Horses will not eat it, but cows are so fond of 
it that they will come long distances to the mills in 
order to lick up what meal they can find. This is the 
way its value as a food for cattle was discovered. 

Cotton-seed meal is bright greenish yellow in color, 
and as it colors everything it touches, the cotton-seed 
mills are rather picturesque to look at, though not very 
pleasant to walk about in. 

The bark of 
the root of the 
cotton plant 
is used as a 
medicine. But 
though so many 
parts of this 
wonderful plant 
are useful, the 
cotton that 
covers the seeds 
is the most valu- 
able of all. 




OTHER FLY-AWAYS. 



A great many other plants have 
plumed seeds, and some have seeds 
with cottony coats, but of all the 
cotton-covered seeds those of the 
cotton plant are the only ones with 
fibers long and strong enough to be 
spun and woven. 

It would be useless to try to tell 
about all the fly-away seeds. There ^ 
are so many of them one would 
never get through. But it is great 
fun to discover them for ourselves. 
If we watch through the summer, 
we shall find many and many of 
them. 

Quite a number of the grasses 
have plumes to their seeds, and 
some of these plumed grasses are 
very pretty indeed. We often see 
them used to decorate houses, and 
in Florida one can see very beauti- 
ful grass plumes growing in swamps. 
Everywhere the fields and woods are 

45 



«i 



Fireweed. 



46 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



full of seed wanderers that fly about to find a home, 
and all that any one need do who wants to see these 
pretty things is to look about and find them. 




SEEDS THAT FLY WITH WINGS. 



MAPLES. 



have 



and 



Maple seeds also fly, but they 
silky or feathery or cottony plumes, 
have wings instead. The fruit of 
the maple tree is called a samara 
and consists of a seed pod with a 
wing. Usually two pods grow to- 
gether, though when thoroughly 
dry they fall apart. 

The wings are thin and light, 
wind sometimes carries them a long dis- 
tance. The maple blooms in the spring or 
early summer, and though its 
flowers have only stamens or 

pistils and no bright petals, yet 
they are very pretty. 

Maples, like willows and cattails, 
often have two kinds of flowers. 
One maple tree will often have 
all staminate flowers, and will 
look as if trimmed with fringe, 
as the staminate flowers have slender stems 
like threads. 

47 





48 



LITTLE WANDELIERS. 



The red maple, which blooms early in the spring 
before its leaves come out, has bright red fringes. 

Sometimes these red-flowered trees 

bloom in January, in Florida, when 

the trees and bushes around them 

are bare, and you can imagine they make 

the swamps where they grow look very 

bright. 

The pistillate flowers are not quite as 
airy as the staminate ones, but still they 
make pretty fringes upon the trees. 

The wind blows the pollen from the 
staminate flowers to the pistillate ones 
growing on neighboring trees, and that is 
why the flowers hang out on long stems. 
Some maples have green fringes and some have yel- 
low ones, but all are beautiful. 

After the flowering season is over, the staminate 
flowers disappear. But the pistillate flowers are fol- 
lowed by clusters of samaras, which are sometimes 
almost as bright in color and as pretty as the flower 
fringes. 

When the samaras are ripe, they fall from the tree 
and are blown about by the wind. They cannot fly as 
far as the plumed seeds, but they sometimes get carried 
quite a distance. 

The seed within the samara often sprouts soon after 




MAPLES. 



49 



it falls. You can see little maple trees starting to grow 

by the roadside, or even along city sidewalks or in lawns. 

The samaras of the early flowering maple trees fall 

quite early in the summer, 
but there are other maples 
whose samaras remain on 
the trees until autumn. 

Maples make beautiful 

shade trees, and some species 

grow to a large size. One 

of the largest and most 

beautiful of them is the 

sugar maple, which is not 

only valuable as a shade 

yields delicious maple syrup 

sap. 

The bark of this tree is " tapped," 

that is, a hole is bored through it into 

the wood beneath, early in the spring, 





50 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

and a little wooden tube or trough is driven into the 
hole. A pail is hung or set beneath to catch the sap 
as it runs out. Sap runs best when the days are warm 
and the nights cold ; then there are merry times in the 
sugar camps. 

The sap is collected in large kettles and boiled to 
syrup, or until it hardens into sugar. Just before it 
is ready to turn to sugar, it makes delicious "wax." 
You pour the hot, thick syrup upon snow, and when it 
thickens into a sticky paste you eat it. It is better 
than any kind of candy — at least I think so. 

A great deal of sugar is made in the New England 
States, where the maple grows abundantly, and in the 
early days the only sugar some of the people had was 
maple sugar. 

Sometimes the sap of other trees, as birches or elms, 
is made into syrup, but none is as abundant or as good 
as the maple syrup. 

The wood of the sugar maple is hard and is valuable 
for furniture and other uses. Indeed the wood of most 
of the maples is prized for furniture making. 

The bird's eye maple is a very pretty satiny wood 
dotted over with round spots that look a little like eyes. 
It comes from certain sugar maples whose wood is full 
of little knotty places. 

The curled maple is also a pretty wood with wavy, 
shining lines made by irregular streaks in the wood. 



MAPLES 



51 



It is sometimes found in sugar maples and sometimes 
in other maples. Maple wood is light in color, and the 
bark of the tree is rather smooth. It is gray in most 
species, and often has white spots on it. 




ELMS. 



The American elm is one of the most beautiful trees 

in the world, it is so majestic in size and so graceful in 

form. 

If you do not know the elm tree, get some one to 

point it out to you at once, and you dk 

will feel that you have made a new / 

friend. It is a very 

good thing to make 

friends with the 

trees and to learn 

to know them when 

you see them. 

Elm trees have winged 

seed pods or samaras. The trees 

are covered with pretty, short 

fringes in the springtime — very 

pretty, but not as airy and pretty 

as the maple fringes. The pistillate flowers are fol- 
lowed by samaras that do not grow two 
together, and that have the wing growing 
around them instead of from one end. 

The bark of the elm is very handsome ; 
it is marked quite regularly and is easy to 

52 





ELMS. 



53 



recognize. It is a good thing to learn to know a tree 
by its bark. The bark of trees is an interesting and 
beautiful subject for study. 

The wood 
of the elm 
is tough and 
hard, and is. 
used in build- 
ing ships 
and making' 
wheels, and 
for other 
purposes where a tough, 

There are a number 
but the best-known 
American elm that is 
parks and for shade 
the red elm, or slippery 
is fragrant and muci- 
chew. This bark is 
sometimes ground up 

Every country boy 
slippery elm bark to 
with his nuts. 



hard wood is required, 
of species of elm trees, 
one is the beautiful 
everywhere used in 
trees. Next to this is 
elm, whose inner bark 
laginous and good to 
good for colds and is 
and made into lozenges, 
lays up a supply of 
dry in the attic along 



^ v 



ASH TREES. 



Ash trees are tall, straight, and handsome, with a 
very dark-colored bark, so regularly marked that one 
soon learns to know it at a glance. I once knew three 
of them that stood in an open pasture on the shore of 
Lake Ontario. 

It was worth going to the pasture in a high wind to 
see the tall, beautiful trunks sway as the wind struck 
them. I used to wish I could climb up into the tops of 
them, though it would have been a very unsafe perch 
indeed. 

You have guessed by now that ash trees have winged 
seed pods, and so they have. 

When the little clusters of ash flowers first show 
in the springtime they are black, and the tree seems 
to have black-tipped branches. Soon the black tips 




ASH TREES. 55 

develop into dark green fringes, though these are not 
airy and light, like the maple and elm fringes. 

The best way for you to find out just how ash blos- 
soms look is — but you know perfectly well what is 
the very best way to find out, and I hope you will 
take care to do it. 

Ash seeds are winged like those of the maples and 
are called samaras, but they do not grow two together. 
Ash trees often bear great numbers of samaras, more 
than any other tree. Where ash trees grow near houses, 
the samaras often fall on the roofs and fill up the 
gutters, so that they have to be cleaned out, sometimes 
more than once in a season. 

The wood of the ash is so 
very tough and elastic that 
from all time it has been used 
to make bows and spear shafts. 
Of course it is also valuable ? 
for less warlike uses. 

When you read the " One Hoss Shay," you will find 
one use to which ash wood is sometimes put. 

The ash tree used to be held sacred by the ancient 
Norsemen, and some day you will read beautiful stories 
about the wonderful ash Ygdrasil. 

The small tree we call u mountain ash" is not an 
ash at all, and it has, as you know, red berries instead 
of samaras. 




PINES. 



Pine trees bear cones, and cones do not fly. But if 
you examine the scales of the cones, you will find a 
winged seed under each. When the cones are ripe the 

scales open and the seeds 

drop out and are caught by 

the wind and floated away. 

^ There are a great 

many species of 

pine trees. The 

seeds of some are large and 

sweet and are sold as pine 

nuts. These trees do not grow 

in this country, however, and we 

should have to go to South America, or to Asia, or 

western Europe to find pine trees from 

which we could gather nuts. 

Squirrels gather nuts from all the 
pine trees, however, for they are not as 
particular as we, and think them all 
good. They are very clever at gather- 
ing cones, gnawing off the scales and 
getting out the seeds. 

Pine trees, like the maples and elms, have two kinds 

56 





PISES. . 57 

of — not exactly flowers, but something answering to 
them. The ovules, or young seeds, are borne under the 
scales of the cones, and the stamens are in catkins. 
Sometimes these catkins are very large, and they bear a 
great deal of pollen which the wind carries to the cones. 

A pine forest is always a sweet and delightful place. 
When the sun shines on the trees they fill the air with 
fragrance. 

Pine trees used to grow all over the northern part of 
the United States, but they make very valuable timber, 
and so have been carelessly cut down and the forests 
destroyed, until now in many places there are almost 
no pine trees left. 

This was a great mistake, as the people now know. 
The white pine of the North gave a soft white wood that 
could be easily carved or " turned," and it was used more 
extensively than any other wood as long as the forests 
lasted. 

A large part of the South is still covered by forests 
of yellow pine, whose wood is dark, hard, and valuable 
for building purposes. 

The pine forests of the South also yield large quanti- 
ties of tar, resin, and turpentine, and it is sad to see the 
forests being carelessly destroyed each year. The trees 
are cut for their sap, from which turpentine and other 
products are made, but if the same trees are cut three 
years in succession they die. 



58 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

The turpentine makers, however, cut them as long as 
they will yield sap, because it is easier to stay in one 
place three years than to move their camps to a region 
of fresh trees. This is wrong, and will result in destroy- 
ing the valuable Southern pine forests in a short time. 

We should take care of the trees, for they are our 
good friends. Besides providing wood for all sorts of 
uses, they protect the earth, keep it moist, and prevent 
the streams from drying up. In many places the farm- 
ing land has been destroyed, because the forests were 
cut down when the land all about dried up, so that noth- 
ing of value to man could grow on it. 

With proper management trees can be cut for use 
without destroying the forests. 




I 







SEEDS THAT FLY WITHOUT WINGS 
OR PLUMES. 

Poppy seeds have no wings and no plumes, and yet 
they are carried far and wide by the wind. Poppypod> 
That is because they are so very small and so ^r^ 
very light. They look more like dust than 
seeds. 

The poppy pod is like a cup 
with a cover on, but around the 
edge, just below the cover, is a 
row of small holes, each covered 
by a lid. These lids do not open 
until the poppy seeds are ripe ; 
then they do, and the fine seeds 
can get out of the holes. But 
hoiv do thev get out ? They 
cannot move of themselves, 
but the wind sways the 
poppy pod this way and 
that on its long stalk, 
and the little seeds are 
shaken out only to be 
caught by the wind and blown away. 

Perhaps you think that is not a very sure way for 

59 




60 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



the seeds to escape, but if you examine a poppy head 
that has been ripe for some time you will find scarcely a 
seed in it, so it proves to be a better way than it looks. 
Nature's way is generally the best way to accomplish 
an object. 

Poppies are often seen growing by the roadside or 
in the garden, far from the flower beds ; that is because 
the wind has blown the seeds to these places. 

In England the wheat fields are often gay with scar- 
let poppies, which have, no doubt, been sown with the 
wheat. They are beautiful to look at, though the 
farmer does not enjoy seeing them in his wheat. 

Opium is obtained from the juice of the partly 
ripened seed pods of some kinds of poppies. Opium is 
very valuable as a medicine, but it has to be used with 
great care, as it is also a powerful poison. 

A valuable oil is expressed from the seeds of the 
opium poppy. This oil is used for illuminating pur- 
poses in some parts of the world, and 

also for soap- 
making. The 
finer quality is 
used as food, in- 




stead of olive oil, in coun- 
tries where oil is eaten 
instead of butter, and it is also 
used in grinding artists' colors. 




OTHER SEEDS THAT 

ARE MOVED BY 

THE WIND. 

Many, many other plants 
have seeds or seed pods that 
can be carried away by the 
wind. The fields and hedges 
are full of plumes and 
winged seeds, and of seeds so light as to be readily 
carried away without special plumes or wings. 

At the top of this page is the picture of a trumpet 
vine. When you have the chance, examine the seeds in 
the pod of the trumpet vine and see how they are 
enabled to fly away. 

Hops are pretty plants, and useful ones as well, and 
if you examine hop seeds — you will see — what you 
will see ! 

Some clovers have seeds that fly. See if you can 
find them. 

Linden trees are covered with clusters of white 
sweet-scented flowers in the early summer. Each clus- 

61 



62 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



ter of flowers is attached in a curious way to a wing, 
and often the whole cluster, with its wing, falls together 
and is blown to some distance by the wind. When 
the lindens are in bloom you will know it by the hum- 
ming of the bees, for they are very fond of linden honey, 
and the trees often sound like an enormous beehive, 
there are so many bees about them. 

It would take altogether too long to tell about all the 
seeds that are carried by the wind, but you can find a 
great many of them without being told ; and that, after 

all, is the 
best way. 
At the bot- 
tom of this 
page are 
the seed 
pods of the 
cow pars- 
very large, 
but rather 
handsome weed, often 
found in the corners 
of pastures. You can 
see that its seed pods 

fly- 




coarse, 




TUMBLEWEEDS. 

Tumbleweeds are funny ! They clo not fly in the 
air, but they go scurrying over the surface of the earth. 
They grow on the Western plains 
and in other places, and some- 
times get to be as large as a 
bushel basket. 

They are not very interesting 
until they begin to tumble. This 
happens in the fall of the year. 

The plants grow like ordinary little bushes in the 
summer and bear a great many clusters of small flowers. 
Late in the season the leaves fall off, and the stems of 
the plant curl over and make a ball of it. The seeds 
do not fall yet ; they can be seen in pretty brown clus- 
ters inside the ball. 

Along comes a gust of wind ; the tumbleweed, all 
rolled up and quite dry now, breaks loose from the earth 
and away it goes, head over heels, rolling like a wild 
thing across the prairies. 

It is very funny to see a prairie full of tumbleweeds 
racing along. They look as if they were playing tag. 
When a train passes, those near the track are caught 
in the draught and off they start, head over heels, as 

63 



64 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

fast as they can. They look exactly as if they were 
chasing the train. 

The tumbleweed does not send its seed children out 
alone into the world ; it goes along and spills them over 
the prairies, as it tumbles about ; for, after a while, the 
seeds get thoroughly ripe and fall off. If you were to 
see the tumbleweeds rolling about over the prairies in' 
the fall, you would not wonder there are so many of 
them growing everywhere in the summer. 

There are several kinds of tumbleweeds in the West. 
One of them is called the Eussian thistle, though it is 
not a thistle. It came from Europe and has proved to 
be the very worst weed the farmer has to deal with. 

It tumbles about in the fall, rolling^ far and wide over 
the prairies before the high winds. In a few years it 
has become such a nuisance that large sums of money 
are spent by the government to exterminate it. In 
some places the school children have been taught to 
recognize it and to pull it up wherever they see it 
growing. 




WANDERERS THAT CLING. 



BURDOCKS. 



Seeds have other ways of going about besides being 
blown by the wind. One way is to fasten on to any- 
thing or anybody that passes and get carried to some 
other place. 

Burdocks do this. Burdocks grow in dooryards if 
they get a chance, and in fence corners and pastures 
and along roadsides, and in fact almost anywhere. 
They are sturdy weeds and often 
grow quite large. In " The Ugly 

' Hans Andersen 
tells us about 
them. 

"In a sunny 
spot stood a 



Duckling/ 




65 



66 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

pleasant old farmhouse, circled all about with deep 
canals ; and from the walls down to the water's edge 
grew great burdocks, so high that under the tallest of 
them a little child might stand upright." 

Like the dandelions and Canada thistles, the burdocks 
came from Europe, and a great many people wish they 
had stayed at home. That is because of their burrs, 
which are a nuisance. in the fall of the year. 

Everybody knows what burrs are. They stick fast 
to the clothes of people and get on the tails and manes 
of horses, where they must cause a great deal of dis- 
comfort, and where it is a great deal of work to pick 
them out. They get upon the tails of cows, too, and 
the fleeces of sheep, and dogs get them on their ears. 
The reason is this : the burrs are full of seed pods. 
The burdock flower head is, like the dandelion, made 
up of a great many tiny flowers, and each flower has a 
close-fitting pod containing one seed, or an akene, as we 
have learned to call it. 

The head of flowers is covered by stiff green bracts, 

and at the end of each bract is a hook. These 

, hooks are soft when the flowers are in blossom, 

and they do not catch fast to things. But when 

the seeds ripen, the bracts grow hard and stiff, 

and so do the hooks at the end. 

Now, when an animal or a person comes along and 
brushes against these ripe burrs, the strong hooks catch ; 



BURDOCKS. 67 

the burr, full of ripe akenes, is pulled from the plant 
and is carried away. It is easy to guess why this 
happens. 

When one tries to pull a ripe burr from the clothes, 
it falls all to pieces and the akenes spill out. Then 
each hook has to be pulled out separately, and very 
likely each one will prick the fingers. 

Children sometimes pick the burrs before they are 
ripe, and stick them together to make baskets and other 
things. Then the burrs do not fall to pieces nor prick 
the fingers much. The burdock has a rank, disagree- 
able odor that clings to the fingers a long time after 
the burrs have been handled. It is not easy even to 
wash it off. 

Children often pick ripe burrs and throw them at 
each other. Some think this is funny, and some think 
it is naughty. 

Burdocks yield a valuable medicine ; so they are 
useful as well as troublesome. 




mm p 



wfk 



COCKLEBURS AND SAND SPURS. 



Cockleburs are covered with hooks, too, but they 
are much uglier than burdocks, for their seed pods are 
very hard and are covered on the 
outside with stiff, strong hooks 
that prick like needles. 

When one walks among 
cockleburs, he soon stops 
to pick them off, for they 
hurt so, he cannot 
bear it. 

Sand spurs are 
even worse than 
cockleburs. 



They are 
the seed 
coverings 
to a kind 
of grass. 

In Florida 

this grass grows in tufts and spreads out close to the 
ground. Some of its stalks are covered with sand 
spurs that, like the cockleburs, are hard and are 
covered, not with hooks, but with very hard spines. 

68 




COCKLEBURS AND SAND SPURS. 



69 



These spines stick out in all directions and readily 
fasten upon whomever or whatever comes along, when 
they leave the parent grass and are carried away. 
After a time they are picked off and thrown on the 
ground, or they fall off, and that is their way of travel- 
ing to find a place to grow. 

Dogs often get them in their feet, and then they have 
a hard time picking them out, for of course the poor 
things cannot walk with sand spurs between their toes. 

There was once a dog that hated sand spurs and loved 
people so much that when any one came near him with 
sand spurs on his clothes, he would at once begin to 
pick them off, and the expression with which he jerked 
them out of his mouth showed very plainly what he 
thought of sand spurs. 




Sand spurs. 



TICK TREFOIL. 



When walking in the woods in the late summer we 
sometimes find queer jointed little pods, like unfinished 

pea pods, clinging to our clothes. 
These come from plaints that 
belong to the Pea family and are 
called Tick Trefoil. There are 
nearly two dozen kinds of them, 
and sometimes they seem to be 
everywhere in the woods and 
thickets. 

The pods are like pea pods, 
only that they are jointed, and 
the joints break apart, so 
that each may be carried 
away separately. Each 
joint contains a little pea- 
like seed. 

The outside of the pod 
seems fuzzy, and it clings very closely to whatever it 
touches. If we look at the fuzz with a magnifying glass, 
we shall find it made up of innumerable little hooks. 

The hairs that cover the pod are turned up at 
the end to form little hooks, very delicate, but able, 

70 




TICK TREFOIL. 



71 



when there are so many of them, to hold on very 
tightly. 

They seem to snuggle clown into the cloth they touch, 
so that it is difficult to pick them off, and the joints all 
separate when we try to remove them, so that each one 
has to be taken off separately. 

Another plant whose seed pods are covered with 
hooked hairs is the sweet-scented bedstraw. This is 
a pretty little plant that spreads about on the ground. 



fc— ^ 




Sweet-scented 
bedstraw. 



Its flowers are small and greenish, but the whole plant 
when in bloom has a pretty lace-like effect as we find 
it in the woods very often growing about fallen logs. 

Its seed pods are small and, like the tick trefoil, are 
covered with hairs that, under the magnifying glass, are 
seen to be hooked. 

The enchanter's nightshade is another little plant 
whose seed pods are covered with hooked hair. It is as 
pretty as its name and is to be found in damp woods. 



72 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

There is a tall leafy kind that grows sometimes two 
feet high and is topped with numerous branches of small 
white flowers. As the flower stem lengthens, the flowers 
continue to unfold at the tip, while lower down are the 
many little seed pods, shaped like little tennis racquets. 

The prettiest enchanter's nightshade, however, is a 
little fairy that sometimes grows on decaying logs. It 
is often not more than three or four inches high and 
ends in a branch of pretty little white flowers with 
bright red calyx lobes. After these dainty blossoms 
come the little hook-haired, racquet-shaped seed pods. 

Look for enchanter's nightshade the next time you 
go to the woods in the summer time. Below is a pic- 
ture of the large one. 




STICK-TIGHTS. 



Stick-tights are troublesome to us, and we call them 
very disagreeable names, such as beggar ticks and beg- 
gar lice. But they are really not bad at all and are 
quite pretty. If they stick to us, that is our fault quite 
as much as theirs, for we should keep away from them 
if we are unwilling to carry them about. 

They cling to whatever comes along, because that is 
their way of traveling about. They cannot walk or 
creep or crawl or jump ; neither can they fly very far 
nor move in any other way, excepting as they are 
carried. ij 

You know how they look — so jp Of course this little 
brown, flat object with horns is an akene. Inside it is 
a seed. The 
two horns at 
the top are 
able to fasten 
it quite tight- 
ly to a woolen dress 
or a sheep's fleece. 
If you look carefully, 
you will see little 
hard teeth on the pV . tig . 




74 LITTLE WANDERERS. 

edge of the stick-tight that help it to cling. On one 
species of stick-tight these teeth point backward, like 
the barbs of a fishhook, and that kind sticks very 
tightly. 

Stick-tight plants blossom in the summer time. The 
greenish-yellow flowers are clustered in heads like the 
dandelion flowers, and like those each stick-tight flower 
has an akene at the bottom. These akenes grow much 
larger than those of the dandelion, and they have the 
two horns on their heads. 

The akenes stand on a flat cushion, just as the dande- 
lion akenes do, but these do not wait for the wind to 
blow them away, though, if nothing comes along to pull 
them loose, they in time become very dry and fall out, 
and then the wind often carries the light little things 
some distance. 

But their favorite method of traveling is by stage- 
coach, and if you happen along at the right time they 
will take you for their stagecoach, and let you carry 
them to a new place. Sometimes the plants grow so 
closely together that in passing through them one 
becomes quite covered with the little brown things,, and 
it is a long and tiresome task to pick them out. 

They, too, get on the tails and manes of horses, and 
the tails of cows, the coats of dogs, and the fleeces of 
sheep ; but they are not nearly as troublesome to these 
creatures as are the burdocks.. 



STICK-TIGHTS. 



75 



There are several species of stick-tights, or beggar 
ticks, as they are more generally called. 

Some have rather large flower heads, with the outer 
flowers each provided with a long, broad yellow petal. 
These are often called wild sunflowers, because they look 
something like a little sunflower. 

There is a plant called Spanish needles, very closely 
related to the stick-tights, and that has four horns to 
its seed pod. 

The burr marigold, which grows in wet places, and 
whose greenish flower heads are round like a marble, is 
also related to the stick-tights, and, like the Spanish 
needles, has four horns. 

A great many plants have these little horned seed 
cases, and when you go about the country in the fall of 
the year you will be certain to make the acquaintance 
of some of them. The plants with horned seed pods 
wish their seeds to get out of the dense thickets in 
which they usually grow, and they do what they can to 
help them. 




AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS. 



In the fall of the year and 
of summer we find a great many i 
woods and along the roads, sending 
into the world by means of stout 
hooked hairs or sharp spines. 

The agrimony is one of these. It 
rather pretty plant with yellow 
it has a burr or seed pod, armed 
prickles around the waist, so to^ 



towards the end 

weeds in the 

& their seeds out 

gn hooks, or else 

is a common, 

flowers, and 

with hooked 

speak. 

through 

one will 





After a walk in the country t| 
woods and fields, in the autumn, 
be likely to find a number of little 
things clinging to one's clothes. 
Instead of merely shaking or pick- 
ing them off and throwing them 
away, carefully collect them, and 
when there is time look at them. 

You will very likely 
find yourself decorated 
with a number of differ- 
ent kinds of seeds or seed 
pods, that vainly hoped in you to find a means of 
traveling to new and better places of growth. 

76 



AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS, 77 

All these little brown things are disappointed, or 
would be if they could feel disappointed. But you can 
profit by their misfortune, and, by carefully examining 
the little wanderers, can learn a great many interesting 
and wonderful truths about the plant world in its effort 
to scatter its seeds. 




FLAX. 



The flax is a very useful plant, for the fibers of its 
stems are long and strong, and are spun into thread and 
then woven into linen. 

Besides this, the seeds are useful. 

They contain an oil which is pressed 

out and is known as linseed oil. It is 

used a great deal by painters in mix- 

A'j ing their paints. 

When flaxseeds are wet they become 
very sticky on the outside. A jelly-like 
substance covers them, and this it is 
which we drink in " flaxseed tea" to 
cure our colds. 

You can easily see this jelly-like 
covering by putting a few flaxseeds in 
a few drops of water and leaving them 
there a little while. 

You can readily see that when the 
flaxseeds are shed in the field and are met by the rain, 
they would stick to the feathers, feet, and beaks of 
birds that came to eat the seeds. If the birds flew 
to another place, as they often would, to clean their 
plumage, they would rub off the flaxseeds, that mean- 

78 




Flax. 



FLAX. 79 

time had become dry again, and often the seeds would 
drop off, as the bird moved about. In this way they 
would get planted in new places. No doubt the sticky 
covering to the wet seed also helps to anchor it to the 
ground and keep it from blowing away when once it 
has settled down on the earth. 

The flax plant that we find so useful is not wild. It 
is carefully cultivated in many parts of the world and 
has been cultivated for so long a time, and in so many 
places, that nobody knows where it first came from. 
It is a pretty plant, that bears bright blue flowers. 

Why do you not buy a penny's worth of flaxseeds 
at the drug store and plant them in your garden and 
become acquainted with this very interesting and beau- 
tiful little plant ? 






MISTLETOE. 



The mistletoe grows on trees. It has no roots of its 
own, but attaches itself to the bark of the tree and 
sucks out the sap. 

Since it lives up in trees, its seeds must be able to find 
lodgment in these high places ; and this the birds help 
them to do. The mistletoe has light green leaves ; it 
grows in bunches and bears white berries. 

The seeds in the berries are covered by a viscid sub- 
stance, and when the birds eat the berries, some of these 
seeds will be apt to cling to them and be left on the 
branches of some other tree. 

If the seeds happen to get swallowed, that does not 
hurt them, for they are not digested, but are passed 
out just as they were swallowed, and they then often 
fall upon the tree branches, where they can grow. 

The English mistletoe very often grows upon the 
oak tree, and from very early times the plant was rev- 

80 



MISTLETOE. 



81 



erenced by the people, and particularly by the Druids, 
who used it in their religious observances. A survival 
of this old superstition about the mistletoe is found in 
its use to-day at Christmas time. 




OTHER PLANTS WITH STICKY SEEDS OR SEED PODS. 

Quite a number of plants prepare sticky coverings to 
their seeds or seed pods, in order to help the seeds 

get away. 

The squirting cucumber is one 
of the most curious of these. It 
grows wild in southern Europe, 
but is sometimes seen in gardens 
in this country, not because of 
its beauty, but because it is so 
curious. It is a hairy plant and 
not at all pretty, but when its hairy cu- 
cumber-shaped seed pods are ripe some- 
thing funny happens. The pod falls from 
the vine, and through the round hole left 
when it fell away from its stem, that which is inside the 
pod is shot out with violence. Out fly seeds and a quan- 
tity of sticky liquid. If a bird happens to be about when 
this happens, he will make haste to get far from such a 
queer-acting plant ; and if he was shot by it, he will 
carry some of the sticky seeds with him ; or he may get 
the seeds attached to him after they have been shot out. 
You see the squirting cucumber has two ways of 
sending its seeds on their journey into the world. It 

82 




OTHER PLANTS. 



83 



shoots them some distance at the start and also provides 
them with a sticky covering, so that they may have a 
chance to get carried still farther. 

Some plants have sticky hairs growing to their seed 
pods. We know that a good many plants have their 
pods covered with hairs which are hooked at the ends. 
Well, some are covered with hairs that have a drop of 
viscid substance at the tip, instead of a hook; these 
hairs fasten on quite as firmly as if they were hooked. 

The pretty little twin flower, or ground vine, as it is 
sometimes called, has a pair of scales growing about its 
seed pod, and these scales are covered with sticky hairs. 

The soft little mouse-ear chickweecl, that grows every- 
where in waste places, has several species which are 
covered all over with fine hairs which have a sticky tip. 
When the plant withers, it is easily pulled from the 
ground, and as it remains sticky, even after withering, 
the whole plant is often carried away by passing ani- 
mals or people, and its seeds 
shed in some distant place. C)C\ f \ \ 

See if you can find some 
plants that have their seeds ^ 
carried because some part of 
the plant is sticky. There 
are not a great many of 
them; still, if you look long 
enough, you will be sure to find some. 




The twin flower. 



WANDERERS THAT FLOAT. 



Some kinds of plants live in the water or on the edge 
of it. These often have seeds or seed pods light enough 

to float. You can gener- 
ally see little seeds float- 
ing about on ponds, if you 
take the trouble to look. 
Into these ponds come 
ducks or herons or other 
waterfowl. The birds 
come to find something 
to eat, and as they swim 
or wade about they come 
in contact with the wet 
seeds that cling to them. 
After a time the birds, 
bearing the seeds on 
plumage, beak, or feet, 
fly to another pond or 
marsh, and as they alight 
the seeds are floated off. 
The wind then blows them to the shore, or else in 
time, if they live in the water, they sink to the bottom 
and sprout. 

84 




Cocoanut palms. 



WANDERERS THAT FLOAT. 85 

The cocoaiiut is a seed that is surrounded by a strong 
shell and a thick coat of fiber that protects it from the 
water and also makes it light. 

The nut inside this thick overcoat is hollow when 
ripe, excepting for a watery liquid that we call the milk 
of the cocoaiiut. As we see cocoanuts in stores, the 
outer coat has been taken off. 

Cocoanuts grow near the tops of tall cocoaiiut palms, 
and these palms are fond of standing on the seashore. 
When the nuts get ripe they often fall in the sea and 
are carried long distances by the ocean currents. In 
this way, no doubt, many a coral island has received its 
lovely fringe of cocoaiiut palms. 

The nuts are floated to these little islands and washed 
into crevices on them, where they lodge and in time 
grow into stately trees. 

The cocoanut palm is a very important tree in tropi- 
cal countries. The nuts are used as food, and a valuable 
oil is obtained from them. Cocoa oil is used for illumi- 
nating and also for making salves. 

The thick fiber that surrounds the nut is strong and 
tough and is made into cloth, matting, brushes, baskets, 
coarse rope, and a number of things. Matting is used 
in some hot countries to make the sides of houses, and 
the cocoanut fiber is useful to thatch roofs. 

The wood of the tree is hard and durable and is made 
into many household articles. The hard shell of the 



86 



LITTLE WANDERERS. 



nut makes good cups and dishes. So you see the cocoa- 
nut tree affords almost everything the people in the hot 
countries need. 

They make their houses and furnish them from it, 
they get food and drink from it, for the milk of the 
cocoanut is a very pleasant beverage, and they use 
the oil to light their abodes at night. No wonder the 
people value this noble tree very highly. 





M 



SEEDS THAT ANIMALS LIKE/ 
TO EAT. 

THE HICKORY. 



The meat of the hickory nut is 
a seed. The hickory tree bears 
two kinds of blossoms. Like the 
willow , it has staminate catkins 
and also bears pistillate flowers, 
from which grow nuts. Some 
hickory catkins are very long and 
slender and make pretty green 
tassJis. tassels on the trees in the spring. Hickory 
nuts are good to eat, and you may wonder how 
these delicious nuts, that many creatures are 



fond of, ever get a chance to grow. 

Squirrels are fond of nuts, and 
they are generally on hand when 
the nuts are ripe. 

The green nuts have 
an outer covering that jjfp- hickory nuts. 

87 




Young 



88 LITTLE WAXJ)ERERS. 

splits open when the nut is ripe and lets it fall to 
the ground. Of course when a squirrel has eaten 
a nut, that is the end of it. But squirrels are good 
housekeepers and store away nuts in holes in the 
trees or in the ground. Chipmunks do the same, 
and some birds, as nutcrackers and blue jays, hide 
nuts in the same way. Often these nuts are forgotten, 
or else the little creature that hid them may die or 
be killed. Then the nuts that have been put in the 
ground have nothing to do but grow when spring 
warms the earth. 

You see they have been planted by the little nut 
lovers, that certainly had no intention of plating 
them. No doubt a great many nut trees get started 
in this way. 

Hickory nuts are often called "walnuts" in New 
England. The hickory tree belongs to North America, 
and before this continent was discovered only the 
Indians enjoyed hickory nuts. Now they are sent to 
England, and indeed all over the world. 

The wood of the hickory is hard, tough, and flexible 
and is very valuable. 

Andrew Jackson was called " Old Hickory" because 
of his unyielding nature, and when you study the his- 
tory of the United States, or read the life of Jackson, 
you will not wonder that he was so named. 

Hickory switches were used long ago when children 



THE HICKOliY. 



89 



were naughty ; tliey were preferred to willow, because 
they did not break so easily. 

A better use to put hickory to is to burn it. Hickory 
logs make a very hot and beautiful fire, and hickory is 
one of the best of woods to burn in fireplaces. 




WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS. 



Black walnuts grow on large, handsome trees of very 
hard, fragrant, dark-colored wood. Walnut wood used 

to be prized more highly than it 
is to-day for furniture and the in- 
side finish to houses. It takes a 
fine polish but grows rather dark 
and somber-looking with age. 

The black walnut is a native 
of the eastern part of North 
America. It belongs to the same 
family as the hickory and, like 
that, bears two kinds of flowers. 

The nuts have hard, thick, 
black shells, and also a softer 
outer covering, or rind, that is 
very bitter and disagreeable to 
the taste, and that stains the fingers a dark brown. 
The " meat," or kernel, of the walnut is very oily, and 
some people do not like it because of its rather strong 
flavor. Squirrels are fond of walnuts, however, and 
often plant them in the way we have seen. 

The English walnut is an Asiatic tree belonging to 
the same family, which has been cultivated in Europe 

90 




Ripe walnuts. 



WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS. 



91 



and, to a small extent, in this country. Its nut is 
larger than the black walnut, has a thin shell and a 
large, sweet kernel. The nut is delicious and a great 
favorite at Christmas time. It is sometimes picked 
green and pickled, and some people are very fond of 
pickled walnuts. 

The nut yields an abundance of valuable oil, and the 
wood of the tree is very beautiful and useful for many 
purposes, one of which is to finish houses on the inside, 
and another to make gunstocks. 

There is another tree belonging to the same family 
that grows in America and looks very much like the 
black walnut tree. It is the butternut. Butternut 
wood is valuable, and butternuts have sweet, oily ker- 
nels that most people like. The flowers, of course, are 
like those of the walnut. 

A brown dye is made from the inner bark of the 
butternut tree, and also a medicine is obtained from it. 

During the War of the Rebellion the Southern soldiers 
were often dressed in homespun clothes dyed by the 
bark of the ^ >^^- ^ 

butternut, 
and on this 
accounts 

they were y W P' jM^^k'T' W 
called * iw^" M 

" butternuts." «* Butternuts. 




THE CHESTNUT. 



The chestnut is a very large and beautiful tree that 
grows abundantly in some parts of New England and 

over the Alleghany Moun- 
tains. Children always know 
the chestnut trees, if they 
live near them. 

Like the hickory and wal- 
nut, the chestnut has its 
staminate flowers in catkins, 
but these are white instead 
of green, and give the chest- 
nut a very handsome appear- 
ance when they cover it with 
airy plumes in the early 
summer. 

The nuts grow in prickly 
burrs, two or three in a burr. 
When the nuts are ripe in 
the fall, the burrs open to let them out. As everybody 
knows, they have a thin shell and a sweet kernel. 
They are sometimes boiled and sometimes eaten raw. 

Squirrels, chipmunks, and some birds are fond of 
them and are often the means of planting them. 

92 




Chestnut flowers. 



THE CHESTNUT. 



93 



Chestnut wood is soft and has rather a coarse, loose 
grain. It is used largely for fence rails, cheap shingles, 
and railroad ties. 

Chestnuts grow in some parts of Europe and Asia, 
and there is one kind that bears a nut as large as a 
black walnut. This nut is not as sweet as our chest- 
nuts, but it is extensively used as food in some parts of 
Europe. The people go in families to gather the nuts, 
and prize them as we prize wheat and corn. 




OTHER EDIBLE SEEDS. 



There are other nuts, as the pecan, whose tree belongs 
to the Hickory family and grows wild in the southern 

part of the United States ; 
the beechnut, which 
grows on a stately tree 
of our forests; and the 
hazelnut, that grows on 



\ 

] bushes in thickets near 

streams sometimes, or on 
the borders of woods. 

But squirrels, chip- 
munks, birds, and such 
folk are not the only 
ones that plant seeds. 
Some ants do. Indeed 
ants are great hands to 
plant seeds. They do not take the hard nuts, but 
rather the seeds of certain grasses and other plants 
that bear rather small seeds. The ants carry the seeds 
into their holes, where they sometimes eat only one 
part of the seed, not enough to hurt it in the least, 
and so the seeds, buried in the ant-hills, are able to 
grow. 

94 




Hazelnuts. 



OTHER EDIBLE SEEDS. 



95 



Ants often drop the seeds they are carrying and lose 
them, and so the road to the home of the seed-eating 
ants is often grown over by plants the ants have sown. 




Beechnut. 



BERRIES. 



Some berries, such as raspberries and strawberries, 
are so good they seem to grow on purpose to be eaten. 
Very likely they do. 

It is quite necessary for the blackberry and raspberry 
bushes to have their seeds sown at some distance from 
the parent plants, and it is also an advantage to straw- 
berries to have their seeds dispersed. So what is better 
than to get the help of the birds ? 

To this end the berries are sweet and juicy when ripe, 
and they are bright in color, so that the birds can easily 
find them. A bird often picks a berry and carries it 
somewhere else to eat, and often it eats only a part and 

leaves the rest, which falls to the 

ground. 




BERRIES. 



97 



All berries have seeds in them or outside of them. 
Strawberries have the little seeds on the outside, as 
you can easily see. 

Gooseberries, currants, and grapes have the little 
seeds inside, but, whichever way it is, some of the seeds 
will be left or scattered about by the birds that eat the 
berries. If some of the seeds are swallowed, that does 
not seem to hurt them ; like the mistletoe seeds, they 
are able to sprout after having been eaten by a bird. 

Birds eat a great many kinds of berries that we 
never think of eating. Notice how often in the late 
summer and the autumn you will see bright red or 
blue, or black, or white berries shining out from the 
leaves or bare branches of the wayside hedges. All 
of these are eaten 
by birds and carried 
away to new grow- 
ing places. 

Not all birds eat 
berries or seeds. 
Watch the birds 
and see if you can 
find out which 
kinds eat berries 

and SeedS. Bunchberries. 





There is no need of describing 
cherries, as everybody knows them 
well. 

The birds are so fond of ripe 
cherries that we sometimes 
have difficulty in getting 
our share before the robins 
and thrushes have 
taken all. Birds 
frequently fly 
away with the 
cherries, eat the 
pulp, and drop the 
stone, which, of course, contains a seed, and this seed 
then often sprouts and grows into 
a cherry tree. We sometimes find 
good cherries growing in hedges 
and thickets, far from the orchard ; 
these have been planted there by 
the birds. 

The sweet cherry is not a native 
of this country, but was brought 
here from Europe. We have a 

98 




CHERRIES. 99 

number of wild cherries, however, whose fruit we do 
not esteem, but the birds are fond of it, and they are 
the means of planting a good many wild cherry trees 
over the country. 

Plums, peaches, and apricots are delicious fruits with 
hard-shelled seeds. The fruit is gathered, the pulp 
eaten, and the stone thrown away. We do not eat the 
seed of the plum, peach, and cherry, as we do that of 
the hickory and butternut. We throw it away, and 
thus disperse the seed children of these fruit trees. 

The birds spread the seeds of the wild plums as they 
do those of the cherries. The kernels of all these seeds 
are bitter and contain a very poisonous substance. 

Cherry trees have beautiful white blossoms that 
come early in the spring, and the peach trees have 
lovely pink blossoms. The peaches bloom the earliest 
of all, and u^ as their flowers come out before the 



leaves, they ^\Ta turn the world into a maze of pink 
beauty in <qll^ the parts where the peach orchards 



are. 




Wild plum. 



APPLES. 



Apples have tough cores in which their somewhat 
delicate seeds are protected. When we eat apples we 
throw the cores away. We now 
know that this is just what the 
apple wants. 

the core is tossed into a hedge 
by the roadside, its 
seeds may get a chance 
to sprout, and indeed 
they often do, for in 
the country we often 
come upon apple trees 
in out-of-the-way corners, where they were not planted 
by man on purpose. 

Apples do not grow wild in this country, excepting 
crab apples. No doubt the birds carry 
away the ripe crab apples and drop the 
cores. 

Pears and quinces have cores like the 
apples, and they are not natives of this 
country, but w r ere brought here because 
of their delicious fruit. Sometimes we find them grow- 
ing wild, and we know how this happened. 

100 





APPLES. 101 

The next time we get a chance let us look for the 
fruit trees the birds have planted. There are a good 
many wild fruits that the birds are fond of, and whose 
seeds they are in the habit of dispersing over broad 
sections of country. 




SEEDS THAT ARE SHOT AWAY. 

OXALIS. 

Some plants have a way of shooting their seeds out 
of the pods. You know about the squirting cucumber. 

The little " sheep-sorrel/' or yellow- 
flowered oxalis, that grows everywhere 
in the fields and gardens, has a way of 
shooting off its seeds when they are 
ripe. 

There is an elastic covering over each 
seed, and when the pod opens, this cover- 
ing splits and suddenly curls up, with 
force enough to send the seed quite a 
distance. 

The leaves of the oxalis are sour, and 

Oxalis. , ._ n . , 

children sometimes eat them. 

A very powerful poison can be extracted from them, 

which is called oxalic acid, and sometimes salt of lemons, 

but, there is not enough of this poison in the leaves to 

make them harmful to eat. The poison when obtained 

in large quantities is useful in the manufacture of calico, 

where it is used in printing the colors, and it is also 

sometimes used in a diluted form to clean metal work. 

102 




OXALIS. 



103 



Be sure to look for the seed pods of the oxalis ; they 
stand up like little candles and are very pretty. Gather 
some that are almost ripe and see how they shoot their 
seeds. 




WITCH-HAZEL. 



This little tree blossoms in the fall of the year. 
After the leaves are gone, and sometimes after the 

snow has conie, it stands in the 
edge of the woods dressed in a 
fairy costume of yellow lace-like 
flowers. After the flowers come 
the pods. They are very hard 
and horny and do not ripen until 
the next fall. 

It is fun to gather ripe witch- 
hazel pods, for when they have 
been in the house a little while 
and have become thoroughly dry 
they "go off." 

You may be sitting by the 
table reading, when pop ! — a 
hard, shining little 
black seed strikes you 
in the face. It is the 
witch-hazel beginning 
its cannonade. Pop ! 
— spat ! — crack ! — the battery has opened, 
and the seeds are flying with great force 

104 





WITCH-HAZEL. 105 

in all directions. They are sometimes shot several 
yards. 

Of course in the woods this shooting is intended to 
start the seed children on their journey in the world. 

The witch-hazel pod bursts open, and the edges turn 
in and press against the smooth seeds with great force, 
so that when they leave the pod they fly as though shot 
out of a sling. Get some witch-hazel pods and see how 
they do it. 

Another name for witch-hazel is hamamelis, and from 
the bark is made a medicine which is put upon bruises. 
A forked twig of witch-hazel is sometimes used as a 
divining rod to find where to dig for water, or for gold 
or silver or other metals. The rod is held in the fingers 
of the diviner, who walks about, and wherever the rod 
turns and points down it is supposed to be the place to dig. 

Divining rods are not much used in these days. Peo- 
ple are not as superstitious, in some ways, as they used 
to be, and they know the rod cannot help them. 




TOUCH-ME-NOT. 



A pod 
that has ^jj 
snapped 



The touch-me-not, or snap-weed, is a delicate little 
plant that grows in wet places. Its yellow flowers 

are airily poised on 
slender stems, and 
the seed pods are 
very curious. 

If one of them is 
touched, it goes off 
with a suddenness 
that is startling, un- 
one gets used 
to it. 

When the pods 
are ripe they shoot 
the "seeds out in all directions, and if you disturb a 
tangle of touch-me-nots in late summer you can hear 
the seeds popping on all sides. 

There is a violet that shoots the seeds out of its pod, 
and the wild geranium pod slings its seeds to some dis- 
tance by suddenly curling up on its long stalk. 

A good many seed pods have this interesting habit, 
but I doubt if you would discover that some peas and 
beans do this unless you were told. 

106 




TOUCH-ME-NOT. 



107 



The lupine, which belongs to the Pea family, shoots 
off its seeds by twisting the dry pod, as it opens to let 
them out. Even our garden sweet peas and some of 
our garden beans do this. Watch to see if you can 
catch them at it. ■ 

Plants have many, many ways of sending their 
precious seed children out in the world to find a grow- 
ing place. 

There is no better way to spend our spare time than 
to watch the ripe fruits of plants and find out how the 
seeds are dispersed. Nearly all plants have some 
methods of sending their seeds abroad. 

You will enjoy the plants more than ever when you 
begin to discover for yourself some of the things 
they do. 




Lupine. 









1999 



